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Jolly pleased your father would be, wouldn't he, to be presented with a jobless, penniless son-in-law?" "Nonsense!" said Carlotta crisply. "It wouldn't matter if you didn't even have a fig leaf. You wouldn't be either jobless or penniless if you were his son-in-law. He has pennies enough for all of us and enough jobs for you, which is quite sufficient unto the day. Don't be stiff and silly, Phil.
When Maximilian planned and completed this charming driveway, he named it the Boulevarde Emperiale; but on the establishment of the republic the more appropriate title which it now bears was adopted. Some people persist in calling it the Empress's Drive, in honor of Carlotta.
"And yet, Carlotta," said I bitterly, "you would go back to him if he sent for you?" She sprang forward and gripped me by the arm I was sitting quite close to her and her face wore the terror-stricken expression of a child frightened with bogies. "Go back? After what he has done to me? You would not send me back? Seer Marcous, darling, you will keep me with you? I will be good, good, good.
All old subjects and yet ever new; each has been painted a thousand times, and in as many different lights and perspectives. And yet each canvas differs from its fellows as do two ripples or two morning skies. For weeks we drift about. One day Carlotta, the fishwife up the Fondamenta della Pallada, makes us our coffee; the next Luigi buys it of some smart café on the Piazza.
I released myself swiftly from her indecorous demonstration. "You mustn't do things like that," said I, severely. "In England, young women are only allowed to embrace their grandfathers." Carlotta looked at me wide-eyed, with the fox-terrier knitting of the forehead. "But you are so good to me, Seer Marcous," she said. "I hope you'll find many people good to you, Carlotta," I answered.
To such unhoped-for and flattering results I was able to attain, by ascending step by step through the encouragement and admonition of my excellent teacher, Madame Carlotta Marchionni, a distinguished actress, and the interest of Gaetano Bazzi who also had great affection for me. It was really then that my artistic education began.
"And is she a woman on whom a man should stake his life's happiness?" "God knows," said I, setting my teeth. It was not an enjoyable dinner-party. I longed for the evening to be over, to have Carlotta safe back with me at home. I felt a curious dread of the Empire. We arrived there towards the end of the first ballet.
She little suspected what a farce it all appeared to him, how mean and contemptible he appeared to himself. He did not care to be mean to rapidly disillusion her and go his way; and yet this dual existence sickened him. He could not help but feel that from a great many points of view Angela was better than Carlotta.
He played with more care and energy than for the other sisters, for Carlotta was exceedingly wilful and imperious, and, if the music jarred, would often stop, shrug her shoulders, and refuse to proceed. Her mother doted on her; even the austere Baroni, who ruled his children like a Pasha, though he loved them, was a little afraid of Carlotta.
I had an apt epigram on the subject of Renaissance humour trembling on my pen-point, when Miss Griggs came in with her foolish gossip. I am sure the platitude I wrote afterwards is not that original flash of wit. Carlotta entered and crossed the room to the side of my writing-chair, her great dark eyes fixed on me, and her hands dutifully behind her back. She looked a Greuze picture of innocence.
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